


Dragged up / Still Here - 1973

by ledbythreads



Category: Led Zeppelin
Genre: 1973, 2021, Canon Timeline, Drag, Fluff and Smut, Love On Tour, M/M, Morning After, Morning Sex, One Shot, Photographs, Photography, Post-Canon, Romance, The Riot House, now and then, on tour, sex scandal, well 1 1/3 shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-21 07:00:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30017919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ledbythreads/pseuds/ledbythreads
Summary: Two linked numbers inspired by the Zeppelin in drag photosA side : Dragged Up: May 2021 AU intimate photos of Robert and Jimmy appear mysteriously onlineB side: Still Here - 1973:  The morning after the night before. In the Riot House Jimmy thinks that must be Robert, still in his bed.
Relationships: Jimmy Page/Robert Plant
Comments: 10
Kudos: 24





	1. Dragged up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything is true and untrue as RP says. This one is set in an AU a little into the future. Too much has been revealed. (originally for an anon ask prompt on tumblr)

May 2021 in a slightly different universe BP Fallon, Zeppelin's old press officer, is talking to rock journalist Lisa Robinson

"Well, I’ll talk to you off the record. I have to assume you’ve spoken to the fellas themselves, now? No agreement though? Well Robert will surely come round but I guess you burnt your bridges with Page a while back, but you’d be the one to do it right. They must know it will be better if they do the press together. Not like our day. He can’t surely think he’s just going to do his man of mystery this time. No, I’ve not seen him as much as Robert, but he’s always cordial. You’ve advised Page not to put anything amateur on the internet now? You do read the internet don’t you Lisa? And look at you now doing the Zoom. Well, it’s been a terrible year. We’ve all had to be dragged into this hell. No, I mean the plague, my dear, not the sex scandal." 

"Well yes, I did take the photographs, but Page has had the negatives for all these years. I thought he had the only copies – when they put the tamer ones on Physical Graffiti, I think he gave them prints. I’m not like you my dear with the triple this and the archived that. No, I wasn’t involved with either of them, whatever made you think that? Not at that time anyway. Make of that what you will my dear. Page saw it as artistic, and they trusted me. I mean they are tasteful by the standards of the present. You’ve seen the full set. You and the whole world, Lisa. We live in Gomorrah my dear. I don’t know why the vultures can’t leave the old men be. Robert’s not got those legs anymore, has he now? I mean he looks like an angel in them. They both do. We were all good Catholic boys Lisa; I knew how they wanted to look."

"Robert? Well, he would do anything for Jimmy. Still will. Why do you think he always kept his mouth shut? I think that night he just wanted to look beautiful for him. You know how close they were that year. The dress was Vanessa Gilbert's. They were copying the queens they knew. It was all quite spontaneous. Then Roy started winding Page up, sitting Robert on his knee wearing that thong. I mean everyone knew they were together, so" 

"That’s true Robert never made a secret of it but this modern thing of the coming out. It wasn’t for any of us. They let you put all those things in Creem though, you naughty girl. And anyway, they were married to other people at the time. We had the Referendum here as you know. Ireland! the first country in the world for them all to vote on the gay marriage. The young ones came to my door and you know I said what use would I have for the gay marriage now? I’m the best 48 hours a person ever had but I’m not for keeping. Those two, this thing wouldn’t have hit so hard if they just done the old Elton and David thing. Can you imagine though? Page was never going to agree to that and then have Robert fuck off on him for the fifteenth time, was he?" 

"You know what I think? I think Jimmy released them himself. Well, I don’t know why they don’t just pick up the phone, do I my dear? I think it’s an act of attrition. You know how they are. I mean they are beautiful photographs. I left that camera with them. The ones that were leaked are only the ones I took. There are others. Y’know?"


	2. Still here - 1973

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jimmy is in bed with a hot blonde

Jimmy wakes in a cloud of ringlets that are probably Robert's. His own unlikely to have lasted the night.  
A heavy arm across his chest and a hot crotch against his ass. Only Robert presumes this much welcome from a sleeping Jimmy. Only Robert can curl his full length and have a little left to spare. Jimmy elbows presumably-Robert in the ribs and squirms against him at the same time, hoping to wake him with an erection.  
Jimmy doesn't know what he will want to do with this erection, if anything, but he definitely wants to come himself and then be left alone. What he's feeling isn't yet a hangover, and with an efficiently achieved orgasm and minimal conversation it need not turn into one. 

Robert stirs and his hand automatically slides down to tuck in between Jimmy's legs as he nuzzles at his neck.  
His arms are bare except for bracelets, the metal warm but the beads cold on Jimmy's skin. He's wearing some slippy scratchy garment that rustles as he moves. Jimmy himself seems to be entirely naked except for, he is alarmed to notice, a feather boa.  
Christ. 

"You still here?"  
"It's actually my bed Jimmylove"  
"Really?"  
"Yep. Bonz carried you in like he'd sacked Rome. You were so fucked up you let him."  
"You didn't let him undress me?"  
"Nah Vanessa did. You were in the dress she needed for work."

Jimmy scoots round in Robert's arms and puts a hand up under his skirt.

"She's soft on you if she let you keep this one on."  
"Jimmy, this isn't by any stretch of the imagination, a day dress. It's Dior."  
"It should be photogenic then."  
"I'm photogenic in sackcloth."  
"A truth universally acknowledged."

Jimmy slides his hand further up Robert's thigh and stops in surprise.  
"You've got knickers on."  
"I was off for hours talking to Roy Harpic. I needed to take precautions. Wanna see." 

Jimmy laughs in answer and kneels up to look at the full length of him, pulling down the sheets like the curtain going up on a burlesque show.  
Maybe they can take their time after all.  
On Robert the dress looks even more sultry for having been slept in. Men's suits tend to make him look like a farmhand, but the dress makes him look like a siren.  
He should wear black more often.  
Robert smooths the material down over his hips and thighs and watches Jimmy watching. Eyes flick down Jimmy's naked torso and flick away before they reach his groin.  
Robert is playing an ingenue and Jimmy remembers hotly when he was.

"Ask me."

Robert reaches for the end of the boa and fidgets it in his fingers like he does with the ends of his hair. He licks his bottom lip and gives the boa a soft tug.

"Touch me. Jimmylove, touch me. Please."

A plane of light from the gap between the curtains falls on him then, like Robert is directing their own movie by his wishes alone. It is time for his closeup.  
Jimmy slips one hand under each side of the dress and inches it up slowly as Robert locks eyes with him and flushes. Jimmy knows Robert is getting hard just by the way he shifts his hips, but he doesn't look down till his fingers hook under the edge of Robert's tight silky underwear ready to drag them down. Robert breaks their gaze and lets his head fall back as he lifts his ass the half inch it needs. 

"These are fucking mine. Robert. Fuck sake!"

Robert's laughing like a summer storm. So pleased with himself, Jimmy can't help melting.

"They're ruined" Jimmy mock wails between fits of cackling "You're too big for them, you beastly boy."  
"I'm flattered."  
"I mean your thighs not your cock. These are Henry Pool and co. They cost three guineas a pair."  
"That's Virginia Woolfe"  
"My briefs?"  
"Three Guineas. She wrote another book about you once, called A Room Of His Own."  
"That Vanessa's joke?"  
"Jonesy actually. They are both having a literary phase. Though I think the Henry Miller is a bit racy for John Paul. I could nick it and read you the dirty bits."  
"Why don't you just show me."

Robert pulls Jimmy into a straddle and sits up to kiss him. When they pull apart Robert’s mouth is smeared with Jimmy’s leftover lipstick. He looks ruined and wanton - and sweet. Jimmy unzips the back of the dress and it falls off one shoulder like a promise. Jimmy rubs over the material to feel Robert’s nipple under the pad of his thumb, and then pulls the bodice of the dress forward and off his arms. Jimmy rubs blurry eyes with the heels of his hands, and when he puts them on Robert’s skin, he leaves soft smudges of kohl like the echo of bruises. And he wants to mark him then, and be marked in turn. He wants Robert’s fingerprints on his hipbones and kisses sucked under his jaw. 

“Did you give Beep back the camera?”  
“No, it’s under the bed.”

Jimmy wants something permanent. Some days memories are not enough. Robert holds him as he hangs over the side of the bed until he finds the strap and hauls the camera out. There are three frames left. He captures Robert in the viewfinder and twists the lens. 

“Say my name.”  
Robert blushes  
“Pagey.”

Click.

“Do me”

Jimmy pushes Robert back on the mattress and hands over the camera. Robert bucks his hips up under Jimmy and wriggles against him. Jimmy rocks back on his heels to free Robert’s cock and then holds both their cocks together as Robert focuses the camera. Jimmy strokes them both in long slow slides and Robert lets the camera fall onto his chest as he gives in to this feeling. Giving up. Letting go. 

“Come on, baby. Take the shot.”

Robert wraps his left hand round Jimmy’s and then grins as one-handed he snaps the shutter, with the camera pointed down between their bodies. 

“That one won’t come out… We were moving.”  
“We need your super eight.”  
“Baby, you look obscene. You’re gonna kill me.”

“Stop talking now…”

They forget the camera. They forget the dress. They are just dancing. Touching. Holding. Sometimes on mornings like this they forget to perform. They forget the circus and the endless parade of people and the costumes and pretense. They forget they don’t say I love you. They forget the wives on the phone and the girlfriends down the hall. They forget the elaborate game of make believe their life has become. They see themselves in their lovers’ eyes and that’s enough. They see each other’s bodies as a private landscape, maybe out in the desert somewhere. Sand shifts and nothing remains but the memory of how bright it was. They are moving together now. One inside the other, but it doesn’t matter who or why or what it could mean. It is Robert who speaks, but it could be Jimmy. It is only what they are both thinking. 

“I want a picture of your face when we are fucking”.

“You say the… sweetest things.”  
“I mean it.”

“Fuck Robert… Shut up… do it.”

Click

.


End file.
